What is the time from a muskets flash pan firing until the ball travels 30 yards?

If they hit the deck before the gun is fired, I dont see why not.

If on the other hand, they wait for the smoke, I think its unlikely.

Did the indians do this before they dropped down on the ground?

Misfires and klatches do happen, but when everything works as it should, and in spite of what some non-flintlock shooters might say, that’s most of the time, from the flash of the pan to thirty yards is a tad slower than the blink of an eye.

Not the best tactic; a volley had balls that would go way high, and ones the went low, and some bounced. Indeed, artillery practice of the day was to aim deliberately low and skip them into the line.
I used the same tactic on a guy on an FTX once; the reason it worked is I had NVG's; he did not. We both ran in opposite ends of a GP Medium tent, I dropped to the ground, he hip fired a full mag on full auto. (Sadly, a standard tactic of that time) I had to wait for the 'bloom' to go down in the PVS-5's, then pegged the sensor on his helmet (We were using MILES) with a single shot while he was attempting to reload. He then accused me of 'cheating' because I was wearing NVG's.

Good Lord, I know I'm old, but I was not in the Cavalry, much less the Horse Cavalry!! Having shot enough of of them, I find that hard to believe.

A full pan of black powder willl take longer to set off the main charge then a lesser amount of 4f.

A flint gun will fire sometimes with no powder in the pan.

Dive for the ground when the commander yells "fire"

Howdy

When I used to shoot a flintlock rifle in the distant past it seemed to me to be about 1/10 of a second from when the powder in the pan lit to when the gun fired. Just a wild guess, I had no sophisticated measuring equipment.

Regarding the 45-70:

The cavalry usually shot their rifles dismounted.

One man would hold the reins of four horses while the other three took a knee or fired standing.

So, no, the kick was not going to knock a man off his horse.

I shoot 405 grain bullets out of my 45-70 Trapdoor all the time with a full load of about 70 grains of FFg. The recoil is a nice steady shove, certainly not enough to knock me over. This is a standard Trap door with a full length barrel. (Sorry, don't have it handy to measure the barrel right now.)

It was with the carbines that the Army went to the 55 grain load. Recoil was felt to be excessive with a carbine and a 70 grain load.

But I still doubt it would knock a man off his horse, if he happened to be shooting while mounted.

BigFatKen said:

On the black powder issue, did the Infantry .45-70-405 really kick so hard it knocked men off of horses requiring a .45-55-300?

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I read that the Army had a size requirement for troopers in the cavalry. Because of the gear carried by horse and rider the troopers tended to be smaller in size and weight. This, supposedly, made the sensitive to recoil and the Army reduced the powder load for the carbine.

The carbine load was .45-55-405. No 300 grain bullets in the Army.

Last of the Mohicans.

When the redcoats formed their ranks and were commanded, "Ready, Aim, Fire" it gave the Huron ambushers time to get cover.

Watching Outlander now.

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"Independent, fire at will..."

From the movie "1941" ....Horriwoooood!